View PrototypeCareer options are abundant yet people struggle to pick ones that best align with their personalities in regards to their strengths, interests, goals, and values. When people find careers that are meant for them, they lead happier, more satisfying and fulfilling lives as well as save time, energy, and resources that would otherwise be spent towards ill-fitting careers.
A key part in people finding their best-fitting careers is having an understanding of their personalities and what careers would fit them accordingly. I have struggled with this personally which is why I was motivated to create an app for a personality and best-fitting careers test.
Designed a career exploration app praised by users for transforming an overwhelming topic into an engaging, playful experience with intuitive navigation and clear content structure.
Through a personality and career test, Unearth is an app that enables those in the early stages of their career to "Unearth" more about themselves and what careers would best suit them. This app also does the digging for you and “Unearths” detailed information on potential best-fitting careers (including salary ranges, required credentials) and relevant certification programs, scholarships, and other resources to empower you to pursuit the career path that is meant for you.
Because when you are aligned with what you do, happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment come to you.
Solo Product Designer — End-to-end ownership including user research, interaction design, visual design, prototyping, and usability testing
While I have personally struggled to understand my personality and what careers would suit me well, I wanted to see if other people also experience this issue. Initial research focused on better understanding the problem’s context.
Upon conducting secondary research, I discovered that younger people, particularly high schoolers, college students, and those who recently graduated college, struggle the most in choosing careers. The average person, according to Longwood University, changes their career 4 times before the age of 32, which surprised me. And as outlined in the graphic below, people change careers largely due to feeling unhappy, unchallenged, and unsatisfied as well as wanting greater flexibility, which didn't surprise me. Based upon my research, it seems that people struggle finding careers that are a good fit for them.
With this information in mind, I then shared in-depth conversations with 5 participants who were either in high school considering college, in college, or recently graduated college and started their careers. This was done to gain a better understanding of their challenges, motivations, and goals in their career journeys to help determine a solution to the problem.
After conducting user interviews, I used an affinity map to categorize user responses into overarching themes to understand central ideas and how they relate to one another:
Affinity map
My analysis revealed that people seem to have little to a fair grasp of their personalities (in terms of strengths, interests, goals, and values) but are also interested in further exploring them. In addition, concerns surrounding costs toward obtaining career credentials, salaries, job security, and social influences or pressures posed as barriers for people being able to choose their best-fitting careers.
User Interview Analysis
Three user personas were then created to solidify my understanding of various types of users and their challenges, motivations, and goals. This was done to guide my decision-making process in creating a solution that would be relevant to my target audience as a whole as well as to its different segments.
User Persona #1: High School Student
User Persona #2: College Student
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User Persona #3: Recent Career Starter
After solidifying my understanding of various users, I brainstormed three potential solutions to the problem at hand:
After some deliberation, I decided that an app for a personality and careers test would be the most effective and feasible solution. Here are 4 reasons why:
After selecting the best solution, I used Miro to muser flows for the top three tasks users would want to accomplish using Unearth:
Redroute #1: Discover personality and best-fitting careers
Redroute #2: Save test results
Redroute #3: Retrieve test results
Then, I created rough sketches to brainstorm how respective screens of user flow steps would look like:
Sketches of screens of respective user flow steps
In retrospect, I should have used blank paper for increased readability but I did not have access to some at the time. After creating these sketches, I converted them into wireframes that were eventually transformed into a low-fidelity prototype. This was all done using Figma.
Low-fidelity Prototype V1.1
Once the low-fidelity prototype was created, I conducted usability tests to identify aspects of Unearth’s design that can be improved so that users can complete their desired tasks on Unearth with ease.
Main issues and proposed solutions for round one of usability tests
Based on insights from the first round of usability tests, I incorporated changes to the design in response to issues users were experiencing that were critical to being able to accomplish their desired tasks. Here are those changes:
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After these changes were made, a second round of usability tests were deployed to further solidify screen layouts before implementing visual aspects of the design.
Main issues and proposed solutions for round two of usability tests
Due to time and resource constraints, I was unable to implement changes in response to the new insights the second round of usability tests revealed. However, I did brainstorm possible solutions that I hope to be actualized when and if time and resources permit.
After honing in on Unearth’s functionality, I created a branding style guide and design system to ensure consistency and clarity throughout the app as well as to establish branding and promote user delight.
By “Unearthing” more about yourself, you can gain a better understanding of yourself in alignment with what career is best for you. This personality and best-fitting careers test also does the digging for you and “Unearths” detailed information on potential best-fitting careers (including salary ranges, required credentials) and relevant certification programs, scholarships, and other resources to empower you to pursuit the career path that is meant for you.
Because when you are aligned with what you do, happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment come to you.
I recognize that there are some constraints within the problem space. For example, people are complex and the person taking the test may evolve, so the results they receive may not be accurate in the future. In addition, with new technologies such as AI on the rise, there are careers that may become obsolete and future careers that don't exist yet. While I recognize these constraints, I am still happy to use technology to attempt to help people find their best-fitting careers. Some ideas I have to address these constraints are to update the app as new types of jobs emerge and to inform people that that their results may not be accurate in the future as people are subject to change and grow.
In the future, here are next steps I would take:
Want to see Unearth in action?
Check out the prototype!
